The Runner
by wjjmwmsn5
Summary: "Winifred Bell had been running all her life. She never knew where she was going, what she was doing, why she was running, or whom she would run into. She ran in infamy and loved it. She was the Runner, after all." AU. No Slash.
1. Chapter 1: I'm the Runner

_So I've wanted for a while to write a story that wasn't a Hunger Games story, and I love Doctor Who, so here it is. This chapter may be a bit confusing, because it's three different points in one person's timeline. To clear things up before we start: the end of a life, the childhood, and then the present. The last part is where the story will be taking place, but I may add more of the spoilers that make absolutely no sense—yet—and bits of Winnie's childhood in too._

_So this is AU! I RP with this character on a Forum, but her name is Winnifred Foster there. I didn't want to name her after the girl in Tuck Everlasting for this story so I changed it to Winifred Bell. It will be going on basically the same track as our RP, but I'll diverge slightly from the plot we RPed. We're the first DW Forum on the list—woo! Go us!—so yup. Not advertising at all. I swear I'm not…_

_And I am American, but obviously, in the words of the…er…_beloved_ Sam, Winnie's a "Brit" so I'll try to be as British as I can, but I will spell with z's and no u's and all that. And the italicized z in the Garamond font looks _really_ cool…_

_Anyway! Here we go! I don't own DW or even Sam—he is the character of Jammerock2000 from said Forum that I spoke of before—but I do own Winnie. So…yup. I'll try to update as frequently as I possibly can force myself to not procrastinate!_

_And I hung this over my fellow RPers' heads so I suppose I'll hang it over my readers' heads too (hopefully I have readers that aren't Tardis or Mad or somebody so they don't know my plans?): The Thing. All I'm gonna say is the Thing._

_WARNING BEFORE YOU READ: Later in this fanfic, some adult things will happen, but I will not talk about them whatsoever. I won't write about the leading-up to it, I won't write about it afterwards - I just won't write about it at all except the consequences and whatnot. That's why this is T and not M. _

* * *

_..._

* * *

The two men's eyes swept over the woman's body as they tried desperately to comprehend the scene before them. So much had happened that everything was muddling their brains, but it didn't take too long for it to click in their heads that the woman in front of them was dying. She had been shot. Dirty, beaten, scared, the blonde-haired girl they both loved so very, very much was dying.

Her husband scooped her up into his arms and felt his knees buckle underneath him. He sobbed into her hair and begged her to stay with him as the light drained from her eyes, and their best friend helplessly stood by, unable to help, only just barely able to breathe and blink and think anything but, _No._ The thought raged through the men's heads. One simple word. And a few fainter words, distant but still there: They were going to find her killer. And he or she would die.

* * *

The little blonde-haired girl with really green eyes and a small smile stayed close to her best friends as one of them asked his father if they could all stay at her house that night. Her smile widened when a sigh escaped his lips. She'd known Mr. Yngsi long enough to know that when he let out a sigh, he was going to say yes, Koschei, fine. Just let Winnie and Theyta's parents know too.

"Fine," he said with another sigh, and the three children grinned. Theyta, the smallest and clumsiest of the two boys, exchanged a happy glance with Winifred Bell, the girl of the three extremely close friends who lived in Glorious Endeavor on Gallifrey. "But I want you back here early tomorrow, okay?" Koschei, the bigger but still small boy, nodded to his father's commands as his father continued, looking now at his son's friends: "Do your parents know?"

Theyta and Winnie both nodded. "My mum says hi," Winnie told Mr. Yngsi.

"Tell her I said hi as well," he said, and looked to Theyta with a raised eyebrow. "Your mother said you didn't tell your parents last time. Have you asked them, Theyta?"

The sky was getting dark and all Winnie wanted was for Mr. Yngsi to shut up so they didn't have to get lectured by _her_ parents as well for staying out at Mr. Yngsi's estate too long, even though they'd been convincing the Torrygs and the Yngsis to let their sons stay over at the Bells'. But they wouldn't be persuaded, she knew. Though she wouldn't go up against Mr. Yngsi and ask him to let them go. She would be a true idiot to do that, so she patiently kept her mouth shut.

Theyta managed a sheepish grin as he nodded. "Yes, sir, I did, sir."

"You don't have to call me 'sir,'" the adult said, and shooed them away. As soon as the door was closed, the three took off running toward Winnie's house, smiling and shoving and teasing Theyta.

"Sir, yes, sir, I, sir, did, sir!" Koschei mocked him, earning a laugh from Winnie and a glare from Theyta. Theyta shoved him and Winnie shoved Theyta. Theyta shoved Winnie and Koschei shoved Theyta. Winnie shoved Koschei and he fell. Now she laughed at him. Theyta seemed satisfied. He crossed his arms as he and Winnie stood panting, waiting for Koschei to get up. He did. "Oh, shut up, you two." He rolled his eyes.

"Look over there! Look at the lights of the city!" Winnie exclaimed, pointing.

The three children all lived outside the city but near each other. Near enough to run freely from the three houses as long as their parents knew they were out running around with each other. They all played and hung out every possible night and day and afternoon and evening that they could, which was every night and many days and most evenings. There wasn't an illness that didn't spread through the group. What one got the other two caught shortly afterward, and they were bedridden until all three of them had it. Then, they reasoned, there was no reason for the other two not to coming over, right?

The boys looked in the direction their companion pointed. The reddish and orange and yellow lights illuminated the red pastures of thick grass in between the few miles between the city and their homes. With the stars' shimmer and the planet's moons faint silver glow brightening the surface of the gorgeous Gallifrey, the sight really was a magnificent one. Even one the fighting seven-year-olds could appreciate.

"Pretty," Koschei said meaningfully before pushing Theyta so he fell down.

"Stop it! We've got to get to my house!" Winnie exclaimed. The boys reluctantly pulled themselves away from each other and stood on either side of the sweet-looking little girl. She confidently guided them with an air of superiority that wasn't exactly arrogant, but instead true. The little boys didn't care much for many girls, but they both liked Winnie. Not a whole super lot. Neither of them would _kiss_ her or anything. But they liked her more than other girls they knew. They followed most of Winnie's commands and never pushed her as hard as they pushed each other, though she pushed both of them harder than even they pushed each other. She was cool, Winifred Bell.

Very cool.

* * *

When she was older, she unfortunately had to move far away from Theyta Torryg and Koschei Yngsi. They weren't able to speak for a long, long time. Winnie gave up hope that she'd ever see them again when she was twenty-nine. Koschei never really forgot her but stopped thinking about her very much when he was thirty-four. Theyta as well never really forgot her, but his mind went elsewhere when he stole a TARDIS and a TARDIS stole him as they fled from Gallifrey.

Winnie killed a man and fled to explore and forget the moment when his hearts stopped beating and her hearts froze in her chest, her breath caught… Koschei got a four-beat drum rhythm in his head and, insane, went to conquer the universe. And Theyta went off to see the stars. The three Time Lords led very different lives and never knew what they even called themselves, really. Koschei knew Theyta—fought him for Winnie when they were thirteen and grew to be a bit less friendly before she moved away, fought him many more times after that for different matters that made them bitter friend/enemies-but-mostly-enemies—but Theyta and Koschei never knew Winnie after that.

Theyta grew wise and Koschei grew more and more mad. Winnie stayed pretty much Winnie, doing as she pleased, going where she pleased.

The Time Lords tried to take over Earth and make it the second Gallifrey. They experimented on humans, trying to make them into Time Lords. But the humans wanted to be their own species and wanted Earth to be theirs, not Gallifrey's. They struck back. As punishment for their stupid attack, a large bit of Earth was reduced to nothingness. A little bit of each of the continents was gone or uninhabitable. All of Mexico was gone and an entire half of South America was gone. Africa was lucky; only seven countries were destroyed.

A war broke out.

They called it the Time War.

* * *

Winifred Bell had been running all her life. She never knew where she was going, what she was doing, why she was running, or whom she would run into. The only question she could ever answer was how: She traveled in a TARDIS coming from the distant Gallifrey where she was a criminal. She ran in infamy and loved it. She was the Runner, after all, despite hating the title she'd had for so long.

Hated it because she killed with that name.

Hated it because she ran.

Hated it and refused to be called it.

Winnie was a quiet but stubborn Time Lady who got what she wanted if she wanted it enough. She disliked staying still for too long if there was no reason to be still, and if the reason wasn't good enough or there was no reason for her to stay, there was no chance for her to stay someplace. Maybe that was what she was running for: she needed a reason to stay somewhere. But what were the odds of that?

She put her TARDIS on "shuffle" mode but limited it to places on Earth after the sixteenth century. She operated the Type 90 time and space machine smoothly, with ease. She'd been running this TARDIS for over nine hundred years, since she was seventy-nine. She was nine hundred eighty-three. The purple and silver walls and the white and gray console decorated the first room of her safety zone, the place where no one would hurt her ever.

Her brown hair flew in her face as her TARDIS bumpily took her somewhere. She realized that she forgot to put the stabilizers on and quickly reached for them, but a lurch sent her off kilter and she nearly fell. Finally she landed, and with miraculous silence—she had put the mufflers, as she called them, on so the noise of her bumpy arrival wasn't heard outside—but by that time she was on the floor and scowling a little bit at her dear TARDIS. "I'll give you some time to cool off," Winnie muttered, patting her console as she stood up and walked to the doors.

The first word that came to mind to describe where she had landed was _desolate._ A few buildings in absolute disrepair sporadically popped up over the once-thriving city that Winnie loved to visit in the time before the war started. December 20, 2012, the day before the Time War, was one of her favorite days to visit New York City, New York. The bustling humans ran frantically to do last minute Christmas shopping. The people generally ran around to and from work and the park and school. And now it was a wasteland. The remnants of cars and skyscrapers and the citizens' belongings were strewn all helter-skelter across the streets and the grass and whatnot. No—wait, never mind. It was too empty, too long gone, to have grass growing in the empty, lonely place.

She looked around as she stepped further out and froze. Two men stood outside a big blue police phone box. The box was the bluest blue she'd ever seen. One of the men was probably closer to being a boy, but she looked like she was only nineteen or twenty, and since they were next to a phone box that she was sure was a TARDIS, she figured that they were Time Lords and the young-looking one was probably hundreds of years old like she was.

She breathed as quietly as possible. She stayed still for far too long before trying to inch back into her TARDIS.

The older man whirled. Suddenly she recognized him. Floppy brown hair sat atop a long face with a particularly…_different_ chin. The man wore black trousers and shoes that Winnie considered old-man shoes. He wore a tweed jacket and a red bow tie. This, she knew from the gossip spreading from world to world each time he did anything, was the Doctor. The nameless Doctor. She'd always wanted to meet him, her idol.

And now his sidekick was probably going to kill her.

His sidekick asked him something.

"Hello!" she called over to them. "Um…how are you?"

The Doctor whispered something to his friend that she didn't hear. "Friend or foe?" he yelled to her.

"You're the Doctor, aren't you?" Winnie asked. She stepped closed carefully. "If you're him, then friend."

The Doctor stepped forward too, giving a short nod. "Hello, soldier, how goes the day?"

"You and your Time Lords," his friend said as they approached.

She extended her hand to them. The Doctor shook it. Then his friend shook it.

"Hi, I'm Sam. And you are?" the friend asked. Sam had nice blonde-brown hair with slight curls and dark blue eyes, bordering on the color of the Doctor's TARDIS, peculiarly disguised as a police box. But from tales of him, Winnie knew it was always like that. His Chameleon Circuit, Winnie noted, must've been broken. She let her hand drop away from him and took a step back.

"I'm Winifred," she said. "I've been running a while."

"Why've you been running?" the Doctor asked her, and a small smile spread across his kind face. "Because, you know, we've been running too." Something was nagging at him—Winnie could see that. It started to get to him as soon as she said her name.

"I'd say it's more like sprinting," Sam said.

"Hush, you," the Doctor said to him, but since he was smiling he didn't seem cross at all.

"Well, I am the Runner," she said in answer to his question. She winked at him and grinned a little. "But don't call me that, really. Call me Winnie."

"Well, Winnie," the Doctor said, "I'm the Doctor, as everyone knows."

She nodded. "And everyone either loves you or hates you." She patted his chest indifferently, when on the inside she was quite excited at patting the chest of her infamous idol. "But don't worry. I love him." She felt like giggling. _I just told the Doctor I loved him,_ she said with internally girlishness.

"Are we going to go sightseeing anytime soon?" Sam asked the Doctor. The Doctor looked at his companion and rolled his eyes.

"Later, maybe." He looked to Winnie. "So why'd you come here? Why old New York City?"

She knelt down and pushed through the dirt like it was sand. A patch of brown grass nearby was ripped up from its dead roots by her hands. She tossed the grass aside idly. "I'm rather tired and I pushed random buttons," she admitted to the two males. She knew Sam was human because of when he said, _You and your Time Lords,_ to the Doctor. So he really was just a teenager.

"When in doubt, push random buttons," Sam exclaimed enthusiastically.

Winnie grinned widely. "That's what I say!" she replied. "Doctor, can I keep your friend?"

"Oh yes, please do," Sam said.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "So long as I don't have to deal with him anymore. Do you want to come in for tea?"

"Sure," she said.

"Why do Brits like tea so much?" Sam asked, walking between the two.

Winnie looked over at him, and a little bit smugly since she wasn't much shorter than Sam and she was shorter than most people were. "We're…er, Gallifs, not Brits."

"Gallifreyans," the Doctor corrected.

"I know." Winnie rolled her eyes.

"But all you 'Gallifs' sound like Brits," Sam retorted.

"Not all the time." Winnie shrugged.

An idea struck her. She should keep her TARDIS invisible just in case she was to stay with the two for longer than just tea. She muttered that she was going to be right back and ran to her TARDIS. She used voice command instead of finding the correct button and walked out. The dirty old dump of a building that her TARDIS had pretended to be was now completely invisible when she shut the door. She ran back to those two.

"What was that about?" Sam asked.

"I had to make my TARDIS invisible," she told him. "It's a, uh, Gallif thing. You wouldn't understand." She grinned. "So, why's your TARDIS a phone box?"

"Chameleon Circuit's broken," the Doctor answered, confirming her previous guesses, and shrugged. "Too lazy to fix it."

"I don't know how to fix it," Sam spoke. Winnie smiled slightly at him.

The Doctor frowned and halted the pair of them. "There's someone else in here."

She paused, blinked, and frowned. "I take it that no one else is supposed to be here?"


	2. Chapter 2: The Man with the Age-Old Eyes

_So, I updated! Yay!  
_

_Unfortunately I wasn't at a computer where I was able to actually write for a while. And I was somewhat busy. But here is the chapter and I went into a lot of detail about...everything. I just kept rambling in this one so it turned out pretty long, when the only part essential to the plot was actually just a few lines from the Seer, Sam, Winnie, and the Doctor. And well...the little bit of spoiler at the top. But that's way far ahead. And then there's the little bit of Winnie's childhood and all because I love writing about her childhood with her little friends who I assume everyone has guessed the identities of._

* * *

_...  
_

* * *

The red-haired, older woman roared in agony as she glared at the man she once loved. She screamed obscenities, but he was fading, becoming more distant, drifting farther away. A faint voice said, _You're running on energy, dear. You won't last long. Kill him and we'll let you die. Don't, and we'll make you suffer by living._ Had she killed him? Or was she just going back to sleep?

* * *

Winifred was eight now. She was a little taller and a little more girlish, but she preferred her best friends from the age of four to her female friends at the Academy. Koschei, Theyta, and Winnie were out at the Yngsi estate. They'd finished their assignments and were now free to play out in the grass and climb the hills. They would explore. Winnie loved to have the boys think they were protecting her when they ventured farther than they were supposed to go because they would hop in front of her whenever they saw an animal and whisper worriedly, "Winnie! Get behind me!"

And of course, they'd end up pushing each other until Winnie pushed them because they both wanted to protect her better than the other.

"Winnie, this is farther than we've ever gone," Theyta warned tentatively, like he was unsure he should be questioning what she was doing. The awkward little fellow he was, Winnie wondered if he'd be a pushover or something when they were older. She kind of hoped he wasn't. That would be sad for him. But she wasn't going to make him stop doing what she told him to do either. That would be silly.

"Yeah, I know," Winnie said simply.

"Go be a wimp if you're _scared_, Theyta!" Koschei taunted. He earned an acidly sour glare from the other boy and a threatening shove from Winnie.

"Be nice!" she exclaimed, but giggled so he knew she wasn't really angry. His hard expression softened and he smiled at her. "Hey, why don't we race?"

"_Further_ or back?" Theyta asked. Winnie giggled because he seemed worried that she was going to say further.

And that she did.

"No, we can't," he groaned. "I'll get in trouble, Win."

Winnie and Koschei looked at each other. Grins broke out across their little faces and they bit their tongues to resist the urge to tease Theyta. They always teased him; he was awkward and innocent and hated getting in trouble, an easy target for their loudmouthed taunting. Winnie didn't want to make him angry, though, or make him feel bad. And Koschei simply knew that if Theyta mocked him in front of Winnie as much as he mocked Theyta, he would punch him. But Theyta was nice. He didn't want to do that. Most of the time he laughed with them when they taunted him.

A noise from a patch of uncut, untended, tall red grass caught the little children's attention: a quick shuffling and they were all sent cowering away from the tall patch of grass together. Winnie looked up at the sky. The twin suns of Gallifrey were still up, sending light over her home, but eerie shadows in the dimming sunshine turned eerier. The lengthened and doubled, though not literally. Her mum had told he bedtime stories about double shadows. The Vashta Nerada, she said they were, and that they lived not in every shadow, but any shadow.

No, wait, that was Mrs. Torryg that told them that: "The Vashta Nerada, children, don't live in every shadow, but _any_ shadow." Her soft, gentle voice made the creepiness of the sentence grow. Mrs. Torryg was a very good storyteller when she wanted to be. When she didn't, she was a terrible storyteller, using short, choppy, undetailed sentences that explained nothing and made Winnie want her to go away.

"What was that?" Koschei asked, and looked irritated by just how scared his voice sounded. Winnie took the boys' hands and they looked at each other behind her head as she stared fixatedly at the spot where they'd heard the noise. Neither boy was too interested in their fear anymore instead they were mouthing to each other: _She's holding my hand! Well, she's holding _mine_, too! Nuh-uh, she's just holding _yours _'cause she knows you're scared of everything!_

Winnie yanked their hands lightly and they moved forward with her. Her eyes narrowed as she peered into the grass. Silence fell over them. Nothing but the natural sounds of Gallifrey filled their ears as they waited for something to happen. Fear and anticipation played through Theyta's mind; Koschei felt fearful but excited, much like Theyta; and Winnie was alight with adrenaline and anxiousness. She was probably the most daring of the three at the best of times. At the worst, she was a cowering little girl who was protected by her two bodyguards who were also her best friends.

Out from the grass popped nothing more than bones.

Winnie screamed at the top of her lungs and ran from the scene as quick as she could, abandoning Theyta and Koschei's hands. They stumbled blindly after her, just as horrified as she. Racing to save themselves and Winnie. Theyta ran faster than Koschei. He tripped and let out a scared shriek, having fallen in the shadows. Fearful that Vashta Nerada were in this shadow, he tried to get up but fell again.

Theyta looked back and his eyes widened. Winnie was panting far ahead of them in the light, waiting, and oblivious to the fact that Koschei had fallen. So if Winnie wasn't going to race into the shadow to save him that meant he had to, didn't it? He decided in a fraction of a second to go after him. He turned, looked at his destination, put his head down, and sprinted as fast as his tiny little ungraceful legs would carry him.

He fell against Koschei, tripping over him, but got up fast. He held out his hand to his friend, yanked him up, and darted from the shadows at his pace; ready to pick him up again. They finally caught up to Winnie and panted until they caught their breaths, all eyes back on the place they'd ran from. Winnie hugged them both tightly and pulled them into the forced group hug, and they sat limp in her arms, just wanting to go back home now that the fear had passed.

"Let's go back to—" Winnie started, but both boys shook their heads, worrying what she would say would be _Let's go back to that place._

"I'm going to Theyta's," Koschei announced. Winnie bit her lip and was about to ask if she could come when he added, "You and Theyta went to the city together the other day without me so I'm going to go to his house to make up for it if that's okay."

"Uh…okay," Winnie said.

She went home that night all alone and told her mother and father of their discovery, but they said it was probably just an animal. Winnie shrugged, not really caring about that anymore. She had to stretch the truth when she told her parents of her adventure because she didn't want to get in trouble or get her friends in trouble, even if she was angry and frustrated with them, for venturing farther than they were allowed to go.

Her mother and father said they were stupid for not wanting to spend time with her. Winnie nodded, putting on a fake smile, and went to her room that she shared with one of her four sisters. She knew her parents just wanted her to feel better and really had nothing to say and no solution for the situation with Koschei and Theyta.

Winnie had five siblings in total. There were her sisters: Marielle, age 4; Donna, age 10, and the sibling she was closest to; Elise, age 16; and Josalie, age 25. She also had a brother. He was her parents firstborn, named Jonah and aged 30. He had been on the reckless side in his first incarnation and was already on his second. He was very smart. But Winnie didn't care for Jonah. He wasn't fun. Josalie was fun, and she was almost his age.

The Bell parents didn't care for long, long names like most Time Lords had. They gave their children humanlike names because they liked them. Winnie liked her name, but once when they were little, really little, Koschei had asked her, "Why do you have a boy's name?" and she had gotten angry and had to explain that even though her name had "fred" at the end, it was still a girl's name. Then he asked her, "Well, why don't you have a long name? My full name is—" and he said his entire long name.

"Because my mummy and daddy say my siblings and I am all specialer than you." She crossed her four-year-old arms stubbornly and looked around at the Yngsi house. They were supposed to be playing at the time. Their parents, who were all friends, were talking together about stuff neither child cared about in the other room. Winnie's mother said another little boy might join too. And that was when Winnie and Koschei met. Theyta didn't show up. Koschei already knew Theyta. They had been babysat together and had played together since they were only months old. Koschei introduced her to Theyta later on.

Donna knew something was wrong the moment Winnie collapsed on her bed with an exasperated huff. "What's wrong?" She grinned. "Boy problems?"

"Boys are stupid," Winnie muttered angrily, glaring at the floor and pretending that she had smashed Koschei and Theyta's faces onto it so that was what she was staring at. "Koschei told me I couldn't come to Theyta's house tonight all because he's a big wimp and he tripped and I didn't know and Theyta did and—"

"Hey, hey, slow down," Donna said, rolling her eyes. "Why didn't you push him or something?"

"Because." Winnie crossed her arms again. "I'm tired."

"I'm not," Donna replied.

That was one of the things that Winnie hated most about sharing a room with her older sister. When she was tired, Donna didn't have to go to sleep. Winnie had to sleep in her brightly lit room. But when Donna was tired and Winnie wasn't, Winnie still had to try to sleep, and if she made any noise Donna would get angry or tell their parents and their parents would tell her not to wake her sister up. And sometimes she would get in trouble for that. So she hated it sometimes. She hated her sister sometimes. Hated her, hated her so much right now, just like she hated her friends.

"I'm going to sleep and I want the lights off!" Winnie exclaimed angrily. She couldn't wait until she was older like her mum and dad so she wouldn't be as tired as she was when she was eight. Then she would be able to stay up for days instead of just maybe one day at a time. Better yet, she wouldn't have to share a room with Donna; she'd have her own TARDIS. And then she'd tell Koschei and Theyta they couldn't have a ride on her TARDIS because they didn't let her spend the night at Theyta's one night.

She knew initiation for the Time Lord Academy was coming. But her parents had turned out nice and her siblings had turned out just as annoying as they had been before initiation, so she saw no reason to be scared. She would be okay. Her friends would be okay. It was just looking into the Untempered Schism, seeing all of time before her and watching it pass and fold and break and bend. That's what Donna described it as. Elise, who was a bit of a pessimist, said it was hell on drugs. Or something. Winnie didn't listen to Elise when she was being grumpy. All she knew was she wasn't really scared.

Not for her own sake. Not for Theyta's. And not for Koschei's.

* * *

_The Doctor frowned and halted the pair of them. "There's someone else in here."_

_She paused, blinked, and frowned. "I take it that no one else is supposed to be here?"_

Winnie took two short steps forward and stopped next to the Doctor, close enough that if she so much as moved her hand a centimeter they would be holding hands. She felt that he could protect her better than Sam, but she felt that Sam would protect her quicker than the Doctor.

Sam was a teenage human whose mind revolved around silly things and not always focused on the importance of its body's actions. Sam obviously fancied Winnie—she knew that. She could tell. And she'd always been fond of the fact that she had a higher sense of telepathy than most Time Lords and, when close enough, she could hear the whispers of thoughts. When merely touching, she could roam through people's minds. When trying hard enough, she could sometimes open doors hard to be opened in stubborn, guided people's heads. It was in her nature to be nosy because of this fact.

So anyway, Sam fancied Winnie. He liked her. She knew he'd be the quickest to dart to a danger and get himself killed for her but she wasn't a killer; she wouldn't allow him to be stupid when the nature of what was lurking where it wasn't supposed to be was unknown. Until she knew if whatever it was would harm Sam or not, she would stick by the Doctor, the other Time Lord.

And then she sensed it too. Just as she had begun to believe that he had not sensed a Time Lord in his TARDIS for long enough that he was just sensing her, she felt and smelled that particular Gallifreyan air around them, around her, around the Doctor, and around a third person hidden somewhere in the room or near the room. The scent itself was the strongest part and she was surprised she had just now noticed it. The scent was close. She felt like a hunter. Hunting was boring though. It took too much patience, patience she did not possess.

She looked behind at Sam. He had a high-tech rifle in his hands.

Then there was the Doctor. She didn't fancy him; he didn't fancy her. She felt a particular admiration for him, a feeling that he was more than just another Time Lord, that he should be idolized. And she would not hide the fact that he was her idol, and not just for the greatness he achieved and the worlds he saved and the way he repeatedly made it out alive, without even so much as _regenerating, _after confrontation amongst confrontation with the vicious Time Lords on the other side, not the humans' side.

The side of Gallifrey, her home, her true home. Where her sisters and her brother were. Where her parents were. The red grass, the lights of the Capitol…

Those thoughts made her hearts ache so she set them aside and instead thought of the true reason why she idolized the Doctor: he was infamous in the best of ways. Hated and loved and feared and yet so fearful and vulnerable upon a simple glance, he was a god. Winnie wasn't religious so she didn't believe in God or any particular other force like gods and goddesses or whatever one might believe in. But she did believe that the Doctor attained certain godliness.

The Doctor. Something flickered in the back of her mind. The Doctor. Hmm.

"Come out, come out wherever you are," Sam called.

As the words left his mouth, Winnie witnessed a woman, dressed in a tight black shirt and dark skinny jeans, as well as a stylish pair of black shoes, jumped down from above them, landing in a catlike fashion: a graceful landing on her feet that Winnie thought had to be rehearsed continually somewhere else, like this had been planned. She didn't like that. The woman had a dark look in her unnaturally white eyes.

The white eyes, admittedly, did creep Winnie out. But she knew that sometimes Time Lords had white eyes or eyes that leaned toward purple or red or some mawkish, unusual shade of green. A deadliness and manipulative ambience that permeated the air stronger than the Time Lord scent around the nameless woman rested deepest in her eyes, encompassing her entirely, making the whiteness of her eyes become the new color of the devil or one of its demons.

"A bit hasty, are we?" the woman said was a sickly sweet grin.

"Intruder alert, I guess," Sam said weakly.

Almost at the same time, Winnie whispered to the Doctor lightheartedly, quietly enough that the woman couldn't hear but just loudly enough that Sam could, "There's another Time Lord in your TARDIS…if you didn't know."

And as she had extended her telepathic field a little but wasn't quite focusing, only hoping the woman was within her small range but knowing she wasn't, she heard a whisper of Sam thinking about her: _Oh, great—she's like a Time Lord version of me. I wonder how the Doctor will handle two of me around. _

She hadn't always at the strong telepathy; it came and went. Only half the time she had it. She was in her sixth incarnation at age nine hundred eighty-three, and out of those six incarnations only three of them had the abnormally heightened telepathy. She knew it wasn't really possible to gain telekinesis, but every time she regenerated and found she had heightened telepathy, she was always disappointed by the fact that it didn't come with its other mind partner, telekinesis. How cool would that be, though? she always thought.

"Sam, put the bloody gun down!" the Doctor exclaimed, noticing he had drawn his high-tech rifle. She could practically see the wheels turning in his head because of their closeness. Who is she? What is she here for? How did she get in? What does she want? Does she work for the Time Lords? These questions and more swirled through his head. Draped over the spinning head, she noticed suddenly, was that thick mop of brown. She hadn't noticed the way his head drifted over his forehead before, and decided that it made his silly face with the too-big ears and the too-large forehead and chin almost close to handsome.

But he was the Doctor. The unattainable Doctor. No matter how much she idolized him, that would be far too much to handle.

No one seemed to be asking the most basic of questions and now Winnie was dying to know, so she asked, "Who are you?"

And the woman responded not with her name but with: "You don't know me?" She threw on a face of mock offense. "Well, I know you quite well, _Runner._"

The name and the implications behind it felt like a slap in the face to Winnie. She had done bad things under that name and discarded it because of those things. But she stood her ground: tall, defiant, glaring angrily right into the woman's white eyes with her own average, muddy brown ones. The eyes that upon first glance looked twenty-one. The eyes that upon further inspection revealed nine hundred eighty-three years of stories behind them.

She was a woman with age-old eyes.

The woman laughed and turned around, walking to the console. The Doctor looked down at Winnie and she looked up at him. Briefly they looked at each other, reading each other like fascinating tales told in fiction books. The kind of books that you just can't put down, they're so good, with so much action and fantasy and foreshadowing. Rage, pain, sadness, all plastered right there in the eyes.

Winnie decided that her eyes held the stories of a two-year-old compared to his. She was not a woman with age-old eyes. And no other man or woman could ever hold as much in their eyes as the man before her head. The Doctor, the most feared being other than Rassilon himself, was the man, the only man, with the age-old eyes. They did not hold a thousand years of stories. Impossibly they held much more than what he'd lived. Hundreds of thousands, millions, billions, all those years. Packed away in his eyes. Like the best book the universe will ever have to offer.

The woman turned back to Winnie and said finally, "I'm the Seer. Doctor, love, before you ask, I'm not going to tell you how I got in your TARDIS. And before any of you ask _why_, I came here to see how well your little resistance is going. Not too well, methinks?"

When no one responded, she continued to fiddle around with the console but touched no levers. She eyed it. She touched it. She smiled and looked at them slyly.

"You're the Doctor and the Runner, of course!" she said suddenly. "Ooh, the stories that will be told there." She grinned widely. "Oh, my. Oh, my, my, my, Runner. To go out so simply, all for nothing? I don't understand why. But I guess you will, one day soon."

Winnie had no clue what she was talking about but the way she said it scared her. Particularly the question. "To go out so simply"? What did that mean? Was she going to die soon? She fretfully feared the answer was yes but hoped more strongly and was most certain that the answer was no. The Seer had to be trying to simply crawl under their skin.

"But that day is the least of your worries now, huh?" She approached Winnie slowly.

Suddenly, to Winnie's relief, Sam burst out with, "What, I don't get mentioned by name?"

The Seer shot an acid look at him. "You're human. You don't get mentioned at all."

Winnie snapped, "I'm not called Runner anymore, Seer. Where have you been? You sound like an idiot not knowing." It was a pathetic retort. She knew it wouldn't make the Seer's skin crawl like the implicit darkness shooting from the Seer to Winnie as she said her old title made Winnie's skin crawl. But it was all that she could think of at that moment.

"Oh, I forgot. I'm not good enough for you." Winnie was pretty sure Sam rolled his eyes.

The Seer looked like she wanted to spit at Sam. "You're not. You're worthless gum on the bottom of my shoe." She turned to Winnie and her fake sweet smile was back. "And why is that? Oh, I remember…"

"Because it's stupid, that's why, and so are you, so shut up."

"Ooh, catfight," Sam muttered.

_Please don't fight, please don't fight!_ the Doctor thought, still so close to her.

She got within inches of Winnie and whispered, "I. Know. What. You. Did." The first word was at normal volume, but with each word she lowered her voice. By the time she got to the last word, Winnie could barely hear her voice.

Her cheeks grew red with rage and shame. She didn't close her eyes and disappear into the dying man's eyes, or the terrified look in the framed woman's eyes. She instead saw it before her in the Seer and then her eyes reverted back to their evilness. She felt like she might cry. Always too emotional. Always uncontrollable. Sometimes the rush of anger or excitement was fun. But the sadness and guilt that was stronger than others' sadness and guilt? That sucked.

"So!" the Seer exclaimed, stepping away from Winnie and smiling at the Doctor. "You're cute sometimes, did you know that? Others—not so much. Too much chin, love. I'm staying here."

"Like hell," the Doctor said almost matter-of-factly. "Get out. Right now."

She giggled. "Aw, you think you're being authoritative, don't you? Poor thing."

"I say I shoot her right now," Sam suggested.

The Doctor looked back at him to make sure he'd put the gun away like he had told Sam to, and he had. Then he looked back at the Seer.

"Then I won't tell you where the bug is. And Rassilon will have tracked you by teatime."

The Doctor scowled but said, "I'll show you to your room."


	3. Chapter 3: 'It'

"Sometimes I wonder if…" the man began, but he stopped short in midsentence, looking up at his friend. _Friend._ The pitiful word. This woman was only his friend, but she was so beautiful, so fragile. She'd insisted herself he stay… But so unattainable he may as well not even try to see her as anything more than a friend from this point on. It would be so easy to cast her off, to go off and do his thing… But he knew that wasn't true. It was impossible to do that. And the end of his sentence was now clear.

"Yeah?" she piped up, her high, clear voice making everything else nonexistent.

He sighed, and though he knew what he was going to say, he didn't want to say it anymore. "Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to give up," he mumbled.

She looked up at him in alarm. "Give up?" she asked. "No. You can't."

"I know," he admitted with a sigh. "I know I can't. But not giving up…means…I'm still…you know. And it means there's always the risk." He took a breath, forcing the intake and exhale of air to remain steady, calm. "Of me killing you. And others."

She nodded. "I know. It's—"

"Worth the risk?" he asked her, narrowing his eyes slightly. "No, it's not. Don't you dare say it's worth the risk."

* * *

The initiation into the Time Lord Academy came finally. Winnie bounced in anxiousness and anticipation all throughout the day, waiting for her time to stare into the Untempered Schism. Now she felt fear for herself and her friends. Now she wondered what would happen. She wondered how she would react to it, what it would feel like, what she would experience. Her hearts thudded rapidly. One-two-three-four.

She would choose her name there. She thought of names she might like now and hope she wouldn't get attached to the more arrogant things she could possibly choose and instead tried to think of something that described her. The Adventurer? No. She liked to go on adventures, but it wasn't _her._ One day she would be "too old" to go on adventures, and then when she was working and living at home with a family and all, she would be the Adventurer but she'd always be stuck at home.

The Explorer? No. The Roamer? No. The Fleer? No, that made her sound like a coward, and she was _not_ a coward. The Braver? She did brave many scary things on almost a daily basis…but then she reminded herself, _No arrogant titles… Is the Braver arrogant? Yes. It is. _

The Wanderer, the Walker, the Sprinter. No, no, no.

She began to consider things that didn't describe but instead embodied who she was. She came up with nothing. In the end, as she thought about it, she muttered, "I just want to run around with Koschei and Theyta." And then—_the Runner._

Yes! That was it! She would be the Runner! She loved it run; it was possibly her favorite thing to do. How could she every outgrow _running?_ Running from danger, simply running, running in races. Running to her friends' houses, running back to her own, running to the Capitol, running everywhere and anywhere and all the time. It was absolutely brilliant! She would be the Runner.

"The Runner," she said aloud. "Hi, Runner. My name is the Runner. What is it, Runner? Can I stay at the Runner's?" She liked the way all of that sounded.

Koschei was led in the depths of night to the Untempered Schism. He held his head up as high as it would go on his eight-year-old shoulders. It was a little scary being stolen away from his home for initiation, but as soon as he knew what was going on, his fear was quenched. Somewhat. A new fear rose. He didn't want to be afraid of the Umtempered Schism, but he'd heard it hurt to look into it. He was frightened of that fact and of the fact that his father said some people went mad after looking into the Schism.

He didn't want to go mad. He was perfectly happy as the Koschei Yngsi he was.

More so, he didn't want Winnie or Theyta to go mad. What if they turned volatile or something? What if they straight up became violent? What if they didn't want to hang out and play with him anymore after this? Well, no matter—Winnie was really strong and Theyta was really weak. Winnie would think it was awesome. She would giggle and say she wasn't scared at all. Theyta would probably try to run before he had time to go insane. Koschei and Winnie would mock him playfully.

The Time Lords brought him up to the Untempered Schism. Koschei looked back at them. In his deep voices that they'd used to explain to him what was going on, one of them said, "Look into the Untempered Schism, Koschei Yngsi. It's the only way to get a proper education and get into the Time Lord Academy."

Koschei's hearts thumped.

He turned toward the Untempered Schism and looked into it. He stared into it. It was beautiful. At first it was filled with such wondrousness that he was lost in it, seeing the Time Vortex, the whole of time and space, what was and what is and what will be and what must never be, seeing fixed points and fluxes in time and places he wasn't sure he'd ever go but he saw them. He saw the whole of his life and saw it disappear too but he saw it. He got lost in the swirls of purple that made his eyes widen and forced their way into his brain and made him see all of the universe and beyond it.

And he saw something else too. He saw it weirdly though. In his awed, distant state, it took him a moment to realize that seeing through his ears what hearing and not seeing.

But as soon as he realized this it exploded. His eyes widened further and the swirls seemed to pick up. His head was a massive ball of pain, a migraine erasing any proper thought and making him pressing onto his temples. As soon as the white-hot knife stopped jabbing into his skull, his mind cleared enough until he heard a rhythm, the apparent cause of the now dull ache and throb in his head.

One. Two. Three. Four. Slow at first, then picking up and staying at that particular tempo. One-two. Three-four. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.

Drums, they were drums. Definitely drums, beating the rhythm, hammering the rhythm. He hoped it would go away soon because it all hurt really badly and he didn't like that.

He thought about names as he was taken away from the Schism, but he couldn't focus. He closed his eyes tightly and wanted to cry because they were getting louder again. He wanted to go over to Winnie's or to Theyta's, so he did afterwards. He crept carefully around his house when initiation was over a few hours after the Untempered Schism part. The rest had been increasingly hard because of the distracting drums.

He left a note on the kitchen table, which read in his little-kid handwriting, _Dad—I'm at Winnie's or Theyta's. Haven't decided. I'll be back sometime tomorrow, probably with both of them._

_—The Master (Koschei)_

That was his name now! The Master. He loved his new name. It was the Ruler or the Master and the Master was so much cooler—and untaken. So when people addressed him by name, they would have to say, "Yes, Master? What do you need, Master? Hello, Master." Ah. That would be cool. Except Winnie. She could still call him Koschei if she wanted to, because she was Winnie and she could do what she wanted. And Winnie wanted a lot.

Then, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. He couldn't focus on anything before the damned drums ruined it, and he didn't know what they were about at all. He frowned and crept out of his house, to the Bells' house. The Bells were nice people. They liked him. They would let him come over this late, understanding he would want to talk about initiation to his good friend. He knocked on the door and a few minutes later, a weary Mr. Bell opened the door.

"Koschei Yngsi, young man, what are you doing out here so late?" he asked in an attempt to sound stern, but Koschei knew better. The man smiled a little bit. "They just got her, I'm sorry. She's at initiation."

They'd be taken away from their families to spend centuries at the Academy for their instruction tomorrow, of course visiting occasionally. But it worried him that he might not be in the same Chapter as—

ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR. The drums demanded his attention.

Koschei weakly nodded and staggered away, running blindly to the Torryg house where Theyta was. After asking to spend the night and asking Mrs. Torryg if Theyta had gone to initiation yet, he raced into Theyta's bedroom as quietly as he could and collapsed at Theyta's bed. Theyta was reading at the edge of his bed, the dim moonlight from the window illuminating the black and white pages.

"Theyta!" he exclaimed.

Theyta was already looking up at him quizzically. He frowned at the crazed look on his friend's face, turned down the corner of his page, and set his book aside. He turned to Koschei. "What is it?" he asked. "And my name's now—"

"Listen into my head," Koschei demanded before Theyta could tell him his title name

Theyta said um. Several uhs and ums escaped his lips before he put his hands on either side of his friend's face. He listened in, but all he heard was an annoyed _I wish Winnie were home_ coming from Koschei's head. "Oh, thanks, Koschei," he said, rolling his eyes at him. Koschei rolled his eyes and shook his head, so Theyta listened harder and all he heard was more thoughts from Koschei.

No drums.

"What do you hear?" he snapped so hardly that Theyta got weak and spluttered out a response.

"Um…um…just your head stuff! Nothing… Nothing _unusual._ Why?"

Koschei glared but calmed himself with a shaky breath, finding that the headache brought on by the incessant drums made him angry. He exploded with a particularly banging, drawn-out _OOONE-TWOOO-THREEE-FOOOUR. _"Okay, can you swear to me that you won't tell anyone ever in all of time, Theyta? Can I trust you and you won't think I've gone made because of the Untempered Schism?"

This worried Theyta. He didn't know what to expect. So he just nodded.

"No, say it."

"I swear you can trust me not to tell anyone ever in all of time and I won't think you're mad," Theyta got out in one breath after a moment.

Koschei took a breath again and decided he wasn't ready to tell him. But then before he could stall any further, he said, "When I looked into the Schism, there was this rhythm. A drumbeat. And it's stuck in my head. One-two-three-four. A simple measure, you know? Sounds like our hearts' beating."

"That is—" He cut himself off. He was about to say "insane." "I'm the Doctor now," he said instead, and blushed a little bit as he remembered running from the Schism before choosing a name. "What's your new name?"

"The Master," Koschei muttered, but his head was elsewhere.

* * *

_BANG-BANG-BANG!_

The door demanded to be opened, and a voice behind it demanded the same, screaming, "Locked! No!" It was a woman's voice. She banged more, louder, more insistent, and let out a shriek. "Open! OPEN!"

Winnie, the Doctor, and Sam were sitting in the kitchen before that entire ruckus, chatting idly, talking about where they might possibly go next. Sam said somewhere with no aliens and minimal running, please, but Winnie said, "No! What happened to buttons? I thought you were adventurous." She looked to the Doctor with an amused smirk and requested, "I want to run until I've breathed all the air wherever we go."

The Doctor chuckled and finished off his tenth—no, eleventh—Jammie Dodger, wiped his hands together, the crumbs on them spilling to the table, and stood up. "I'll be right back, then," he told them, and Winnie bowed her head in playful acknowledgment. No one felt like telling the Seer they were going somewhere, so no one was going to. Let her figure it out for herself, they all silently agreed. Things were better without the witch. Well, "witch" wasn't the word they used to describe the woman in their heads, but it was only one letter off.

Minutes later, when the Doctor hadn't returned, Winnie went out to the console room and told Sam she'd be right back to get him. He stayed where he was, thinking that if he did as she said, she might like him a little more… Winnie nearly let out a giggle when she heard him thinking this. She quickly left the kitchen, going quickly to the console room. There, she found a mystified Doctor staring at an even more mystified woman.

A green, scaly woman.

"Who's this?" she asked the Doctor curiously. The woman looked too wide-eyed to answer.

Sam came into the room. His attention span was too short to stay put in that room all alone for too long.

"A Silurian," the Doctor answered.

"No duh," she said, rolling her eyes.

Sam said, "Well, what's it doing here?"

"_She!_" Winnie mumbled to him in protest.

"No clue," said the Doctor.

"'Kay," Winnie said in an overly girlish, overly stupid-sounding voice. She nodded slowly, as if the whole thing was hard to comprehend. "We have a Silurian now. 'Kay."

The Doctor shot her a look that told her this was not a wonderful time for jokes, even if the jokes were horrible. He seemed a bit amused though, but probably just at how horrible her attempt at humor had been. Unless of course she was just trying to be lighthearted, it seemed silly. Then again, there really was no reason for her to have to put lightheartedness into the room—it wasn't a dark or sad moment—but she was Winnie. There was no telling what went through her head.

"Not if I can help it," Sam muttered, pulling out another of his high-tech gun things, as Winnie called them. She wondered how he would respond to calling his most likely precious weapon a "high-tech gun thing." She made a mental note to herself to do that as he approached the Silurian, holding the gun ready in his strong, steady hands. Hands that had probably never killed before, but were well-trained to kill all the same. "Yo, big green thing, get out."

Winnie couldn't help but let out a giggle despite how awful he was treating the poor Silurian.

"'_It_'? '_Big green thing_'?" the Silurian snapped, coming to her senses. She pointed her gun, which wasn't quite as deadly-looking as Sam's but that everyone in the room knew was quite deadly, as any gun might be, at Sam. "Running from _its_ kind that is chasing _it_, that's what."

"Don't call her an 'it,' Sam," Winnie warned.

"I never called the thing an 'it'!" he told her.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, you did! You said, 'What's _it_ doing here?' And now you're calling it—she! Gosh, you've got me doing it!"

"I could call you an 'it' or a 'thing,' 'ape,' or 'human,' but I don't. It's common courtesy." The Silurian held herself high as she said this, as if courtesy was a great achievement that she'd won billions of trophies for or something. Perhaps she was just proud to be defending her kind, even though they seemed to not be on good terms with one another if she was running from her kind and desperately banging on TARDIS doors to get away.

"So," the Doctor said. "Why were you running?"

"Fine, I never called _her_ an 'it'!" Sam exclaimed. It was obvious no one was going to listen to the Doctor.

"Just shut up, Sam!" Winnie said.

The Silurian motioned around the TARDIS. "This is a ship, yes?"

Sam rolled his eyes, weapon still ready, too oblivious or too stupid to realize that the Silurian's was still ready to shoot him as well. "Nah, we just live in an old bigger-on-the-inside phone box."

"Could be considered smaller-on-the-outside," Winnie added idly. "But that's the pessimistic way of seeing it. Or—ooh, yeah, or you could see it as disproportioned." She turned to the Doctor. "You're TARDIS is disproportionate!"

"Yes, it's a ship," the Doctor answered. "I'm the renegade Time Lord."

The Silurian's eyes flared and her gun pointed to him. "Time Lord. Time Lords are enemies of Earth."

The Doctor took a quick step back and nearly stumbled into his console. Winnie instinctively caught his hand and he looked at her, green eyes locking and narrowing at brown eyes. She jerked her hand away and mumbled something about him being _such_ a klutz before returning her attention the remaining nameless Silurian who now occupied their TARDIS, and who seemed as clueless as ever that this was the Doctor, not, say, the Seer.

"_Renegade _Time Lord!" he exclaimed. "I'm the Doctor."

"Oh." She finally put her gun away and awkwardly held her hand out for a shake. "Renegade Silurian at your service. I'm Arada. And if you're friend over there doesn't stop pointing his gun at me, I'm going to shoot him."

"Hey! I'm only keeping it to protect people I care about, like myself and the Doc and Win," he said.

"Win_nie_," Winnie corrected.

"Doc_tor,_" the Doctor said.

"He must like three-letter names, the conceited little thing." She grinned at the Doctor.

He rolled his eyes.

"Protect?" Winnie asked suddenly, just picking up on that. "I don't need protecting. And, Sam, you threatened her before she threatened you."

The Doctor seemed amused but said nothing, and Arada said, looking at Sam, "I believe, in the words of your species, you just got 'owned.'"

Winnie giggled and the Doctor chuckled quietly, because he had just been owned by a little brunette woman who he had a crush on and a green lizard lady. It was far more entertaining than Winnie's bad jokes but not quite as entertaining as the Doctor's oddness and his klutziness, which seemed to reach an all-new level or clumsy and stupid every minute, but in a cute, Doctorly way, or that's how Winnie saw it, at least.

Arada frowned, her eyes narrowed and darting between the two Time Lords. "What?" she asked. "Did I pronounce it wrong?"

Winnie smiled. The Doctor shook his head. "No, you pronounced it right," he assured her. "We're laughing at Sam."

The Doctor jumped as a loud bang came from the door. Winnie smiled at his jumpiness.

"I'm guessing those are the other Silurians," she said as the Doctor began setting coordinates to somewhere else. Anywhere else but where they were, Winnie assumed.

Arada turned quickly to face the door. "Ah…yes…" She didn't take her eyes away from the door. "I'm considered a traitor for helping humans. Or 'apes,' as they like to call them. I've tried to explain. I fight for _Earth_."

"Well, they don't sound too happy," the Doctor observed as he flipped the last lever and they were sent through time and space, somewhere else.

"No. They aren't. They want blood," Arada told them, and Winnie shivered a little bit at her choice of words.

"Yours, or the human's?" Winnie asked.

"Well…both. Mine, in this case. They'd have it, too, if it weren't for this box."

"Lucky we were here," Sam piped up. Arada paid no attention to him, and he seemed extremely annoyed, especially since he had put his weapon down shortly after the embarrassment of being "owned" by Winnie and Arada.

The Doctor nodded, "we can't let that happen, now can we?"

Arada looked back at the Doctor and smiled slightly. "I hope not."

"Any friend of Earth's is a friend of mine," the Doctor said, smiling back at her, but it was a grim smile.

Winnie got bored now and wandered around the large console room. She was particularly uninterested in the Doctor and Arada's chat but said nothing as she wandered about, wondering if anyone noticed her moving around. She doubted they did, or maybe it wasn't a big deal. Well, it wasn't, was it? she reasoned with herself. It was no big deal. She listened intently to the conversation above, looking for a time to return to the chat.

"Well, Earth is a good planet," Arada's voice came from above.

"Was a good planet..." Sam said quietly. Winnie barely caught his voice.

"No, _is_. My love for it still stands, even if yours has drifted. I just regret it is not in its best state any more. Though you humans didn't actually ever help with that." Arada's remark particularly made her skin crawl for some reason.

"And you Silurians did?" Sam asked.

"Well, we didn't tear it apart with pollution like you. Or have so much conflict."

"Well, blame the people that did tear it apart with pollution and war, not the innocents."

"Have you ever used electricity? Been protected from war? Then you're a part of that. Not that it matters now, because the cocky Gallifreyans have decided to destroy half the world anyway."

Winnie scowled.

"I never said I was an innocent," Sam said.

"You implied it."

Sam rolled his eyes "Whatever, I'll be inspecting my armory if anybody needs me."

"You do that," the Doctor said. Winnie returned to above when Sam left.

"He's very... I don't know what the word is," Arada said.

"Argumentative?" The Doctor said.

"...Something like that," she said.

The Doctor chuckled and cocked his head at her. "So... you're part of the resistance then?"

"Why else would she be ranting about the Time Lords, Doctor?" she said, finding her way into the conversation.

"There are neutral factions," the Doctor said, turning to her.

"Neutral people are indecisive," Winnie told him, turning to him. "You hate something or you love something—pick a side."

"Well, I'm not a neutral faction," Arada told them, "not in anything official, but I do what I said. I fight for the Earth."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Or the ones who are too scared and too sick to fight for either side."

"That's what other planets are for. But then, once they move away, I show up there and it's hectic all over again," Winnie said with a grin and a light laugh.

Turning back to Arada, he nodded. "Well, so do I. I fight for the humans as well though."

Winnie took a breath and decided that her comment wasn't one that was particularly easy to respond to, and she shouldn't make anything of the fact that he didn't say anything.

"As do I. By Earth I mean Earth and all of its species. Humanity equals Earth which equals I fight for it."

"Well, this is getting depressing," Winnie said, trying to perk up a little.

"Actually, I think it's picked up slightly from talking about my own family wanting my blood," Arada said.

"Has it?" Winnie asked sarcastically, but Arada had already left, and Winnie was glad.

The Doctor clapped his hands together. "Winnie! Are you hungry? I'm thinking of eating an apple."

"I'm starved," Winnie told him. She smiled at him, and he took her hand, yanking her back toward the kitchen. Winnie giggled along the way, holding tightly to his hand.

He pulled out two apples. She took one of them and he grinned at her, taking a bite of his apple. She did the same, looking at him the whole time, grinning happily.

"So. Have you met the Resistance commander yet?" she asked him, looking now at her apple in her hands. It was cold and juicy, and redder than the TARDIS was blue. "Hell, it should be you."

"Ah, the infamous River Song," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "I know of her, of course. But she's a great leader and we've got nothing other than infamy in common."

"You, infamous? No," she said, giggling a little bit and taking another bite of her apple. She tossed it up in the air and caught it. "Being infamous sounds nice, though. Any pointers?"

"Well, you've gotta piss somebody off first," he said, chuckling.

She grinned. "I can handle that."

"Then you just have to run around and get people to do what you say, pissing more people off along the way," he told her.

"Well, that's nice and all, but I don't think I want to do what you say, Doctor," she said, smiling at him. She watched him as he took another bite of his apple, and he watched her. Looking into each other's eyes, though not romantically but more questioningly, they continued to eat their cold fruit. Winnie couldn't help but think that this was flirting on a minor scale, and the thought made her smile too widely and she bit her apple again, feeling silly. She looked around the kitchen. "Blue."

"I like blue," he said.

"It suits you."

"That's probably why my box is blue."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I suppose. Blue box with a nice infamous man inside."

He straightened his bow tie and bowed. "Of course."

"And then there's his new friend, the gorgeous Time Lady with brains like no one's business, right?" she joked, grinning at him with a waiting raised eyebrow.

"Whatever you say," he said with a slight smile.

"Have you got anything else to eat?" Winnie asked.

"Bacon," he answered. "I love bacon."

She wrinkled her nose. "Ick, anything else?"

"You don't like bacon?" he exclaimed in over exaggerated protest.

She shook her head and tossed her apple up. He stepped forward and caught it before she could, and she glared playfully at him. He grinned and ate the half she hadn't yet eaten. Then he quickly finished his own apple off and tossed the cores in the trashcan. She shoved him lightly. "I'm going to steal your bow tie or something, just you watch!" she told him, tugging on it lightly. He rolled his eyes and poked her forehead.

Sam came in. "Oh, hey, Win. Sup, Doc."

"Win_nie_, Sam!"

"Doc_tor,_ Sam."

"Nah, I like Win and Doc. Something about three-letter names," Sam said.

Winnie and the Doctor shared an amused, knowing look, and chuckled at him.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," Winnie said, sighing after her giggles were gone. "Does anyone else want to swim?"

Sam nodded. "I heard the Hawaiian Islands were all deserted," he mentioned.

"So, is that where we're going, Doctor?" Winnie asked.

The Doctor looked up. "Huh? Oh, Hawaii."

Winnie saw Sam mouth, _Please say yes so I can see Win in a bikini._

Then she saw the Doctor cringe after Sam said this and wondered if he was hurt, or if…if…

"Hawaii!" the Doctor exclaimed. He bouncily went swiftly to the console room, and Winnie and Sam followed. Then Winnie turned to Sam and asked where the wardrobe is, and they bounded off toward the wardrobe, racing like brother and sister. The Doctor followed as soon as they had landed. Sam got in black swim trunks and wore TARDIS blue ones. Winnie got in a dark purple bikini, making Sam practically collapse when she exited her changing room, and tried not to stare at either of the shirtless males.

She ran out of the TARDIS and to the water, diving in. The Doctor dove after her, and Sam was left in the sand.


End file.
